Dan Murphy

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Dan Murphy (2019)

Dan Murphy (born September 23, 1944 in Alton , Iowa , United States , † April 14, 2020 in Dili , East Timor ), actually Daniel John Murphy , called Dr. Dan , was an American doctor who practiced in East Timor.

Career

Murphy came from a Catholic family with Irish-German roots and grew up in a rural area; his birthplace Alton had fewer than 1000 inhabitants. He was the middle of five children of the doctor Cornelius B. Murphy and the nurse Ethel, nee Koelzer; she died when he was a child. His father was the only doctor in the area and gave birth to more than 5,000 children during his career. Dan Murphy played basketball at the local St. Mary's High School and received a partial scholarship as a basketball player at the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota , where he studied science for two years. He then moved to the University of Iowa to study medicine .

The Vietnam War influenced Murphy politically and in his social views. After graduating from the University of Iowa Medical School in 1971, he did an internship at a hospital in New York . Here he joined the protests against the war. When he was charged in the same year for patterning, he refused military service on grounds of conscience and was therefore to two years' probation ( Probation ) sentenced, on condition that he practiced medicine during this time. After the internship, Murphy moved to California and worked for six years in a clinic for migrant workers under the direction of civil rights activists César Chávez and Dolores Huerta . After a few years in Iowa, the family moved to Mozambique in order to establish modern medical methods in rural areas. After three years they had to return to Iowa due to the dangerous political situation. Murphy ran a family doctor's practice here with a friend for two years, and from 1984 to 1998 he had his own practice. At times Murphy also practiced in Laos and Nicaragua . As an activist, he supported the then controversial distribution of methadone to heroin addicts in the USA and opened an addiction clinic for this purpose. He was also a sports doctor for the UNI Panthers .

Dr. Dan during the investigation

In 1998 Murphy decided to go to East Timor to help the people there. His luggage consisted only of clothes, toiletries, a stethoscope, and a basketball. He had no plans to return. By then, East Timor had experienced 23 years of Indonesian occupation and guerrilla warfare. In the last wave of violence before the occupiers left in 1999, large parts of the country's infrastructure were destroyed, including most of the medical facilities. As the only non-Indonesian doctor in the country, Murphy founded the Bairro Pité Clinic on September 26, 1999 for poor patients in a former Indonesian military clinic in the district of the same name in the state capital Dili.

The clinic cared for an estimated 200 to 300 patients per day in 2015. At that time, the clinic had 80 employees, including another senior doctor, 40 nurses and 20 midwives. The work is financed entirely from donations. Support comes from the Australian Australian Foundation for the Peoples of Asia and the Pacific (AFAP). The monthly cost is about $ 50,000. Murphy himself worked for free and lived on his pension. On average, Murphy helped a hundred births a month. Among the diseases that are treated here are, for example, tuberculosis and AIDS .

On April 14, 2020, Murphy died of cardiac arrest in Dili . On the day of his death, he had been treating patients in his clinic. In the months before, there had been talks about how the clinic could continue to operate if Murphy retired. A new team was set up for this.

Private

Funeral of Dr. Dan Murphy. Due to the fear of the COVID-19 pandemic , participants wear protective masks

Murphy married his girlfriend Janet in California, whom he met while studying medicine. The couple had two sons: Liam (born 1974) and Connor (1977). The couple separated in the 1990s. Dan Murphy was an avid basketball player even after graduating. In the preface to his autobiography Breakaway , his son Liam describes basketball and medicine as the two red threads of his life.

Awards

In 2009 Murphy was awarded the Medalha de Mérito for his services . He was also the recipient of the Sérgio Vieira de Mello Prize .

On the day of his funeral, April 16, 2020, Murphy was posthumously awarded the Medal of the Ordem de Timor-Leste .

Publications

Web links

Commons : Dan Murphy  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i David Gardner: Ex-UNI team doctor Dan Murphy now changing — and saving — lives abroad. In: Sports Illustrated . December 23, 2015, accessed April 14, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e António Sampaio : Morreu médico Dan Murphy que dedicou 20 anos aos mais vulneráveis ​​em Timor-Leste. In: Visao.sapo.pt . April 14, 2020, accessed April 14, 2020 (Portuguese).
  3. ↑ Dr. Daniel Murphy. Bairro Pité Clinic, September 23, 2018, accessed April 14, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Dan Murphy: Breakaway. Cape. 1: Beginnings .
  5. ^ History. Bairro Pité Clinic, September 23, 2018, accessed April 14, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Australian Funded Healthcare Organization Receives Highest Timorese Honor. In: East Timor Law and Justice Bulletin. May 30, 2009, accessed April 14, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Dan Murphy: Breakaway. Preface by Liam Murphy.
  8. ↑ Dan Murphy. In: isthmus. September 28, 2015, accessed April 15, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Cipriano Colo: Estadu Kondekora Doutór Daniel Murphey ho Medalla Órden TL. In: Tatoli.tl . April 16, 2020, accessed April 16, 2020 (Tetum).
personal data
SURNAME Murphy, Dan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Murphy, Daniel John; Dr. Dan (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American medic in East Timor
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Alton , Iowa , United States
DATE OF DEATH April 14, 2020
Place of death Dili , East Timor